Intro: Iron Man DIY

This Mark 3 Iron Man costume is very accurate to the movie's. I spent lots of time trying to get all the details in. It is mainly made of Poster Board, Foamies (arts & crafts thin foam sheets), a ton of Hot Glue(I think I used 140 sticks or so including the helmet and arc reactor), Mod Podge, and newspaper to thicken and seal the posterboard with Mod Podge. Mod Podge was also used to seal the foam to make painting easier. The entire construction of the costume took about 1 month on and off or 100 hours of labor. Most of the time was spent test fitting and cutting templates that fit me correctly.

The Arc Reactor was made by following the instructables Arc Reactor DIY using surface mount LED's and molding plastic.

The Helmet took about 40 hours of work (including drying,sanding,bondo, and painting). It was made by first creating a mold of my head as the base using Plaster Bandages you can get from arts and crafts store (Plast'r Craft is the brand). Once this dried I built up the Iron Man Mark 3 shape by using a very thin aluminum mesh(held down by hot glue) you can get from arts and crafts stores as well near the clays. Once you think you have the shape down, lay down more plaster bandages. If it doesnt look right like my first attempt(no chin) then repeat process with more mesh and bandages. Then, cover the outside of the helmet with bondo in small increments, sanding in between each application to a smooth finish. After that is just painting.

Painting was done using a Gloss Colonial Red and a RustProof Metallic Gold. I used lots of taping to make sure the colors didnt mix at all. Good luck its a lot of work but will be the talk of all the parties.

Ummmmm can you or someone please send me pictures of the unfolded leg pieces because i cant seem to figure out the shin piece and I need a better picture of the thigh. THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU CAN! superdman9000@gmail.com

Thank you. I find you useful.

wow.....amazing

Its pretty cool. you got a considerable amount of detail on there <br>you made the mouth/cheek too wide and the resst of the helmet to round <br>besides that its really good <br>im hoping to make a mk 1 out of thicker/more foam <br>and the armor just out of the poster stuff in tonys room in avengers <br>oh and if you didnt know... I AM SOOOOOOOO MAKING THIS!!!!!

Do you make other armors like mark 4,5,6,7 or is that the only one you use?

Cool!!! Your costume has been very inspirational. I might even make my own.

Did I notice that your ears are visible from the back?&nbsp; There was complete coverage in the film, otherwise he would not be able to fly into subspace.

Did you also notice that my body is sticking out as the suit doesn't fully enclosing me. &nbsp;There was complete coverage in the film too otherwise he would freeze to death in that atmosphere. It also wasn't bolted together over me if you were wondering that too.

Is it possible that you could draw out a template for each piece of the torso? Thatd be awesome if you could :D<br />

The pictures of the torso in the slideshow would be the template as I didn't have one to go on.&nbsp;

dude frecken awsome can you make a instructabul on it

Thanks. &nbsp;Sorry but there will be no instructable for this.&nbsp;

Too bad, I really wanted to make one for my little brother.<br />

&nbsp;Yeah sorry. &nbsp;I just don't have that kind of free time to redo it or document it. &nbsp;If you follow the pictures though I'm sure you could try. &nbsp;If you have questions you may message me and I'll try to help.

ok

Hey NICE suit I have a question though...<br /> With the chest plate is it sheets glued together, one on top to make the basic shape???<br /> <br /> This could really help me.<br /> Also could u send me pics of your templates?<br /> Email is <a href="mailto:seanwackojacko@hotmail.com" rel="nofollow">seanwackojacko@hotmail.com</a> if not just say so, (I know that there are no plans etc.)<br /> Sean.

Quick Question how much&nbsp; money would&nbsp;it&nbsp;take to have just whats in picture 3 from the right made. generally just the chest piece and connecting back. I wouldnt need it painted.

To do it yourself will cost you around $20 for the chest piece.&nbsp; I can't help you though because it was all trial and error as I went.&nbsp; No measurements.&nbsp; Took a while though to get it to look right. &nbsp;Good luck.&nbsp;

good job! it's cool but shoulders are too big, mak them smaller and the suit will be perfect.<br />

I agree completely.

hey, it's me. i made my warmachine/ stealth armor iron man suit, and it was a great success, i will try to send you the piks :P&nbsp;

With Halloween coming up, I am getting more and more e-mails asking for instructions and blueprints. PLEASE READ the description and comments and you will see there are none. It was all trial and error and lots of patience. I will ignore any e-mails that ask for instructions so please don't bother. If you have questions that's another thing but I DON'T have instructions and I DON'T plan on making any for this one....it took long enough as is to make. Maybe future projects will but not this one.

Could you send me directions
here is my email
r.durrenberger@gmail.com

NO, there are none other than the description I wrote which also states there are no directions.

one question.......how do you go to the bathroom with that thing on? Now there's a challenge lol

Actually its very easy. My cod piece is attached with velcro and I'm just wearing normal pants under. When I create my costumes I take in to account being able to walk, sit, and use the bathroom.

Man, That is amaizing i would love to have the specs or even blueprints, do you have any more in depth picture you could email me? it is lericksonm@gmail.com i would love to have something like that...

hey, can you send me all the pics?, my g-mail is doyoulikewaffles.yesido @gmail.com, sorry it is so long, i had a hard time finding a good user name.

dude, this is the best suit i've ever seen!, can you make a step by step?

Thanks for letting me know. Pretty smart. Keep up the good work. Cheers!!

Great job on the Costume! I was wondering how the shoulder pieces are attached? With Velcro? Thanks. Awesome once again.

Thank you! I'm going to be doing some upgrades to it for halloween this year too. Anyways, the shoulders are velcroed on. There is a velcro strap on the top center of the shoulder piece nearest to my neck that attaches to the shoulder seam of the chest piece. The strap should have a little bit of extra length to allow you to raise and lower your arms comfortably. To keep the piece from falling off though when bending forward or to the sides, there is a small velcro strap at the bottom center of the shoulder piece that attaches to the black shirt I was wearing. Hope this helps. If you look at this pic: <a href="http://www.instructables.com/file/F0BRYDTFMZADO14">http://www.instructables.com/file/F0BRYDTFMZADO14</a> you will see the shoulder pieces 3rd from the right with the velcro coming off of it.<br/>

Hey eseidel extremly nice job on your ironman armor. Now I have a question. See I was wondering if you had printed out folding paper or had you just thought about it all yourself by looking at pictures of iron man. Could you help me out cause I dont know each step to take and how im supposed to form a mask by hot glue gun and foam board. BTW already got tons of foam board and hot glue gun sticks. Please reply ASAP or email me at allenan000@gmail.com. Thanks.

The helmet was not made of hot glue and foam. I used plaster, followed by wire mesh glued to it to form the face, then more plaster, then bondo and sanding. And no, it was not made from print folding paper such as pepakura. It was all through trial and error.

Hey man...
i liked...so beaultiful...so cool....
Can send me the blueprints...i wanna to make the suit but dont find anyhere the blueprints of arms, chest, legs and the rest...
lucas.badspider@gmail.com
Can you?
thanks man!

Thank you. Sorry, there are no blueprints. It was all trial and error. The best advice I can give is to start with buying a ton of foam and hot glue. Joann's and MIchael's both have 12 packs of poster board sized thin foam for around $8. You'll probably want 24-48 sheets of the foam to make templates and the actual pieces from. I used poster board too for base of the the chest and shin guards to get very sharp lines, which I then hot glued foam on top of.
Just start by cutting the foam and shaping it the way you want (run the hot metal tip of the glue gun against the foam briefly and you'll create scores in the foam to help fold) . Make sure though to actually mold it against your body to get the best look, you may need help to hold pieces.
Keep adding foam pieces to build the shapes you need, it doesnt have to be pretty as these will be your templates, Just make sure they are tight fitting but can be easily removed and are flexible enough to walk around and bend in(and use the bathroom). My chest piece attached with velcro on the sides and I decided to sew in two loops of elastic at four points to the inside of the arms and legs to keep them in place but still allowing me to move and adjust as needed. This was done with a sewing machine to give it a triple stitch to make sure it didn't pull through the foam.
The cod piece was seperate and velcro as well so I can remove it do use bathroom, but it did have foam molded with head to my butt so I could sit comfortably.
Once you have the templates created, cut them in half down the long way and lay them flat. Now you can cut the real pieces and glue them back together (while templates are a pain, I found it much easier to build the shapes this way then wasting a ton of paper and foam with trial and error). If your templates unfold to sizes larger than the foam, take two pieces of foam and duct tape them together on one size, fill the seam on the other side with hot glue, and duct tape too.
If you have questions I can try to assist but it was all trial and error...a creative mind goes a long way too. Good luck, you'll be the life of the party. I had so many people ask to take pictures with me I couldn't believe it.

i have a question for you. how much do you think you spend on the whole iron man prodject ?

Without paint or electronics for the lights I would say around $100. However, I did have a bunch of foam and hot glue left over, so you could probably get by on $75. The real cost came from all the paint needed. I think I went through 4 cans of red and 3 of yellow, plus a few cans of primer and clear coat. Total was around $150-175.
The good thing about it though is you can purchase stuff slowly over time. Do a few pieces at a time and the cost won't be too much (at least up front).